So I wasn't 100% certain where I should post something like this, but I figured off-topic is general enough.
I joined LoTC on October 24th, 2012. As it is now 2017 I thought I should address and acknowledge the influence this has had on my life.
Although I don't often get on to RP anymore, I still am on the forums daily (graphics subforum is my homeland). As I was scrolling through the forum I was wondering about my old skin/art threads; "Cutepiggy's Skin Shop", "Minie's Skin and Sketch Art Emporium", and "Gilly's Quality Art" (way to flatter yourself there). As I was looking at my old awful awful art I was thinking that without LoTC and all the people wanting free art, I would 100% not be at where I am today. I turn 17 this year and i'm fairly quickly approaching the time to start looking into colleges, and I know that i'd like to be a concept artist and illustrator. I think that if I hadn't found LoTC, hadn't gotten whitelisted, and hadn't met the other great artists in this community I wouldn't have decided to be an artist. While that may be a far stretch, I think it's true.
The other artists on LoTC are the biggest influence to me. Keem (@Kim) was the first artist I came across on LoTC, and is still a huge inspiration and motivation to me. She's so so talented, and being my competitive self it drove me to want to be as good or better. Since then I've come across other of LoTC's artists like Nummy, Desires, Cave_Creature, Trinn, among many others. All of them have had the same influences on me and I thank you all, because even if we've never had much of an interaction you've been a big inspiration to me.
I'd also like to thank all of the people who have commissioned me or requested art from me over the years. Especially Liri who commissioned me enough that I could buy a new drawing tablet (which still stands strong today). Though everyone has been helpful to me. I've gotten a lot of practice through doing requests, and with my commission earnings I've been able to buy many art tutorials from my favorite professional artists which I believe have helped me tremendously.
While I've improved greatly, I've still got a painfully long way to go. As of today I'm taking my school's provided art classes as well as an independent study. In my free time i'm working on commissions, doing studies and everything I can to continue improving my art. So I hope that you all continue to support me, keep being great artists, or at least just don't insult me. I'll do my best to give back.
//salute
And for you viewing pleasure, here's a little timeline of my art from when i'd joined LoTC to today (well, a couple days ago).
(Images in order of year and creation)
2014 (Minie's Skin and Sketch Emporium) The year of requests.
Very late 2014 -2015 (Gilly's Quality Shop) The year of slightly better requests and I opened commissions.
2016 (big images) The year of commissions and very few requests.
2017
More art here